The cost relativities were calculated using expenditure and
staff data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)
Finance and Staff records. The subject groupings (known as Cost
Centres) were assigned to cost bands, taking account of NHS reimbursable
expenditure in medicine and teaching ratios. Within each cost
band we calculated expenditure per unit staff. Back in 1997 when
we first introduced these cost weights, the top band was set at
1.7. The cost weights are currently being reviewed using more
up-to-date data.

Generally speaking, humanities subjects can submit outwards
from the last seven years, and social science, medical, science
and engineering subjects from the last five.

The longer period for humanities subjects was introduced
in 1986, following representations that research in the subjects
generally took longer to come to fruition than in the sciences,
and in particular that output from the subjects were more often
monographs than in the sciences, and monographs took longer to
produce. We consulted both the humanities/social science and the
scientific community, and this view was generally confirmed.

A list of subjects where the assessment period departs from
the usual five years is given in Annex B